Sounds

Sunday April 15, 2012
Once again I was once again in the studio working on sound. This time I was working on sound effects in the studio. I sent out about over a week again a sound sheet of what everyone needs for each of their mini games. This went more smoothly ask about sounds then music, since my team mates are not musicians or into sound like I am. I got a pretty long list from everyone, plus I added some sound effects of my own that I thought maybe work in our teams game. In total I worked on 42 sound effects, will we use them all probably not.

This session went much faster then my mid-term project. The sounds where a little more doable and if not I used royalty free sound effects. For instance I need a firework sound for when a level or game is complete is show the player they did well. This was not possible to get this sound this time of the year and Illinois bans fireworks, so I would have to cross the border to Indiana and buy and use the fireworks there. This was not going to happen, so I got legally free sound effects of fireworks and layer the sound into a track into Pro Tools and then I mixed until liked what I heard.

This happens a lot in creating sound effects, not getting always what you want out of your sounds. Another instead I had to create a sound effect of breaking bricks. I had Mike (the studio owner) get some bricks from outside and hit them together and grind them together. Well, the sound came out kinda weak so I use the recording I made and layered it with other royalty free sound effects of grinding and hitting of bricks until it sound strong enough to be believable. From there I mix in Pro Tools with some plug-ins and I got my sound.

Mike hitting two bricks together to get the breaking of brick sound in the live room at Vnote Studio



I finished all the sound effect expect two, because they where not sounding right when record. The are a little weak when I record them ,which I will have to find another way to get the sound I'm looking for.
The rest of the sounds where work in studio with Pro Tools and using the program Reason. When I recorded my sound effects I used a AKG 414 microphone. This microphone has a multi-pattern mic. I mainly used the cardioid pattern, except for the crowd and cheering sound. I used for those sound effects was the super cardioid pattern, mainly because it picks up more of the room but not too much.



supercardioid pattern

The session went smooth and was done fairly fast. These where more of my easiest sessions. There is more to come with sound. Until later....